The Legend of Candlewind: Nights & Candles

first time i feel duped and cheated by a game's expectation. didn't mind the interface's rejection of the player so much and, though it was obvious the inventory was a zero dimensional numbness, i still went through the routine ( along with its "no-choice" battle moments ). when it ended ( 2 hours (plus time to get a 'sense' for generating a need for my participation in the game) at most? ) i was hoping that it would, somehow, unfold into the "actual, intended" game, one much deeper and complex, a grimrock type of world, but sadly, that was it. what can i say? maybe it's just the pricing that is at issue here. if it were a buck then i would have let the matter drift i suppose, not sure. surely he even meant well but what can i say? i would encourage him to be fair with us, his buyers. i would also encourage him to keep at it, build it up and surprise us all with a wonderous patch that gives the game volume and makes us all say "yes!" as is, i just feel empty about it. as advertised, and with this pricing, i do not recommend it.

Well, one unbelievably empty, dull, hollow piece of code. Hardly can I call it game, since it lacks content of all possible kinds: visuals (I don't remember single animation), sound, lore, story, sensible fighting & leveling system... you name it. Along with bugs on every possible step, it resembles some pre-pre-pre-alpha concept of a game - and concept rather to be thrown away. It is hardly to believe someone has the "guts" to even sell it - I would be ashamed to release it even as freeware. So much dilletantish and sloppy it is. It hurts to be this harsh, but it hurts to play it even more.

Ein wirklich sehr schwaches Spiel, dass ich niemanden empfehlen würde. Da ich meine Entscheidung in einem Video bereits erklärt habe, hier einfach der Link dazu. http://youtu.be/iKlCN4HuSW8

I paid $10 on the Humble Indie Store for this game. Don't make the same mistake I did. This might have passed for a $30 game back in 1990, but it's not worth $10 today. Avoid this game until it's $1.99 or free. It's tough to see any kind of patch making this game better. Cons No option settings to lower music volume or resolution or anything whatsoever. 4 Characters that look like they should be on their way to a rock band musical performance. No WSAD movement, you must use arrow keys. Pros You can quit the game and never look back. DO NOT BUY! You will thank me later.

To echo others, this definitely comes across as an unfinished game. It just feels like a very early prototype, lacking in a lot of content...and it's just sad that it's not simply in early access, waiting to eventually flourish. As it stands, the dev doesn't appear to answer questions about whether work will continue on the game or not. Instead, it's $10 for a game that feels like a bare-bones demo of a 90's dungeon crawler.

Awful. Non-intuitive controls. For example, I wasted so much time trying to get the archer to fire an arrow because it wasn't obvious that equipping arrows on the archer requires the player to SPLIT the arrows and use it on the bow - merely using the arrows on the bow without splitting does nothing. I don't even know why the game didn't pre-equip them for me, since the archer can't even melee from the back of the party anyway. And then I realise that the archer was useless anyway, because I've seen a grand total of one hit connect. Given that the whole game takes place indoors, in narrow corridors, with enemies less than 100ft away, I do not think highly of her skills. No character customisation. The game just starts and I didn't even get a chance to choose party members. And then there is that one battle where all my party members missed every single attack. Every. Single. Attack.

Eh, I don't even know, where to start... I strongly recommend you not to buy the game for full price of 9,99€ You will be jus wasting your money. Wait for a bundle of sime kind where you can get it for few cents. And this is completely reasonable price for it. The game itself seems unfinished. Well, you can actually finish it, but mechanics are just terrible. There is no Options in game menu, only thing you will find there is: New adventure, Load, Credits and Save. Forget about reasonable intro - only one page with cliche story apperas. Yeah, and forget about customizing your party. You are trown to a dungeon immidiately, left to struggle by equiping your party. I do have problem with that - I've palyed tuns of grid-base RPGs but those usually came with manual of some kind, where some basics are explained. This manual is a Joke. Few pictures hot to actually do stuff would be nice. The only usable keys are arrow keys - forget about WSAD. You can't select hero by number keys, what I find normal in grid-based crawlers. Forget about triggering game menu by ESC. You have to punish your mouse with thousands of meaningles cliks. It took me about 20 minutes to figure out, how to use bow in combat and since I've checked, other gamers had the very same problem. Is that a problem to write it to the manual? Or maybe use some intuitive technique how to do it? And what's the matter with the doors? Again, same situation like with the bow (yeah bow, I didn't find any other during the run). Why tere are keyholes? Why on Earth, is there a possibiliy to interact with the keyhole? [spoiler] You can walk just through it.[/spoiler] Why there isn't a loot from creatures? I don't find it that important, but it seems to me, thet those keyholes were projected to be used by keys. Maybe keys from some loot? It gives me an impression, that designer were lazy at some point to finish this idea. What about some story? Again, I've played few games without one, but at least it was compesated by game mechanics - puzzles of sime king, different textures on the wall, interaction with NPCs, animation of monsters (and also groups of monsters) or animation of swings during the fight. And again, I have this feeling that at some point designers just resignated to spend more time on the development of the game. Fights are somehow boring, because monsters either kick your donkey badly or you wipe them by two swings. And why? Because you have to literally grind them in the dark corners od dungeons. Otherwise you will get punished badly. This means, you have spent from 10-30 minutes pushing a button: Wait for monster. And it will come! Ant than other, and than other.... So after few hundrets of creeps you are ready to continue you epic journey. And be prepared for encounters. Monsters will appear from nowhere, leaving no loot after killing. Your party will suffer from hunger - but you can feed them bread and apples you will find, or cast a spell thet feed your entire party. And here comes the troube. You can't rest/sleep in Candlewind. Therefore do not count with mana regeneration. I find it acceptable, but in connection of random encounters of monsters, you can easily run into a situation, were you will be out of health, mana, you party will be starving and there is nothing, you can do about it. You just lost. There are no hints, how many treasure chest you will find, so you can't plan mana consumption. Yeah, and a lootfrom chest is random... Do you need potion of some kind? Forget about it. I've run across one glitch, when group of monsters was floating in the air, unable to attack me. I was lucky, that i had enough arrows to shoot them down. Ohterwise it would call for alt +f4, because you cant bring up menu during fight. And you cant even open your inventory during hte fight. Run out of mana? Sorry, just wait till a monster will crush all the weak party members. Last thing. [spoiler]5th and 6th party member are completely pointles. Only first two heroes can attack by their swords/daggers. All other members have to wait till the end of a fight. Just a magic book can be used and a bow (yeah the 1 vow you have from the very beggining). And a funny thing - as soon I've rescued them, both of theme were dead. But I have interacted with them right before. Creepy, right?[/spoiler] And to be fair - there are few thing I liked: The song (yeah, there is no other one), textures on walls, creatures (just animate them!) and the portrait of hero (again the, because it is for the whole party with some slight modifications). Candlewind is game you should avoid. There are some glitches, mechanics are terrible, dungeons are somehow "empty" and I have an impression, that developers just did a sloppy job of finishing it. Personally, I'll avoid any other game creathed by them. TLDR tips and spoilers: [spoiler] - You can use a bow only if you split arrows and put one in your hand. - Most of the doors are open - just press the forward key - You will regenerat mana when you level up - be prepard for that. Feed our party before you lup - Open locked chest by a spell. You can reload a game, if you are not satisfied - Take everything you need. Inventory is big enough. - Don't read manual. It's pointless. [/spoiler]

This game is an old school RPG where you move your party around with arrow keys through corridors in a dungeon. You encounter enemies in a 1st person view & select actions for each party member such as attack, magic spell, shoot arrow, cast spell and so on. Its decent enough if you find it in a bundle how I did for only $0.30. Reminds me of old-time RPG games and an RPG fan can enjoy it for this cheap price with no worries. The graphics are OK, simple drawn art, nothing great but not horrible either. Party members all look the same as if they are brothers/sisters, same hair for everybody as well. Sound is decent with music and effects that do the job. I would give the game about a 5.5/10, it is better than many indie games I have played, but nothing special. Good for a bundle game IMO.

[h1]GROWL...[/h1] And now I am forced to play this game through thoroughly, because it has achievements and I have a strong dislike of letting games rest with only a couple of Achievements done. Basically a Dungeon Crawler, if you need to compare this game to other dungeon crawlers, give it a light denomer... Sadly this game also has it's own issues with a clunky user interface. Also this game suffers somehow from the "endless Clones of Schwarzenegger"-disease somehow. All portraits of the "Heroes" look so damn like Arnie in his younger years. [table] [tr][th]Category[/th][th]Score[/th][th]Notes[/th][/tr] [tr][td]Graphics[/td][td]7[/td][td]Okay Graphics, a bit too muddy and sloppy. But still good enough.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Sound[/td][td]6[/td][td]Average, they at least made some original stuff and didn't just change the sound of other games to have their "own" soundtrack.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Character Developement[/td][td]1[/td][td]Again very Linear, but at least a good destinction of Multi and Single class characters. Sadly, not very deep.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Roleplay[/td][td]3[/td][td]At least this game gives you a bit more freedom, but the rest is more or less... nonexistent. At least no bad, forced humor dialogues and no wall of text to beat you up.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Resource Management[/td][td]6[/td][td]Hefty! You have to manage torches, food, potions and arrows... and some resources are really incredibly rare (torches)... fumbling around in the dark never is a good idea. Also Mob-Groups can put a drain on your resources, since they attack one after the other - and you are not able to break out of a fight.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Playability[/td][td]4[/td][td]Clunky to say it in the most friendly form. Some actions require additional steps, like splitting stacks, others are easier to understand but still require an additional step. This isn't well designed and needs to be addressed. If you force the player to do additional steps, you frustrate him. It's not that the game is unplayable because of this, but the manual is too silent about the exact steps. You can break open chest, given you are of high enough power... doors sometime need keys, as well as chest. There is a workaround to the later.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Value[/td][td]2[/td][td]The game doesn't appear to be too big. Also it's a bit of a pain to play because of the clunky playability, which can lead to frustration. Also you need to grind, because some challenges can't be solved at the face level of the party... so you will grind a lot, which also makes the game as a crawler a bit unfun.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Overall[/td][th]4,1 ~ 4[/th][td]*[/td][/tr] [/table] [h1]Not Recommended[/h1] It is quite simple, the game has some merrits, but too many flaws in the sense of clunkyness. It just doesn't play fluidly, therefore the fun in this game is spoiled very quickly. Especially that the exact way of using things in this game isn't well described in the manual is one of the biggest flaws. The additional required steps just worsen the feeling about this game. And really? Why do almost all portraits look like Arnie mockups? The time the developers needed to polish out those basic flaws in design and gameplay wouldn't have taken too long. The game would have been a bit easier to understand, and would have gotten a bit more love from the players. Also it's somehow lacking the riddles and insidious traps that were genre specific in those games.

Buy Legends of Grimrock instead.